


Of Ava & Amborella

by DuchessOfBurgundy



Category: Persona 3
Genre: Emotional & Intellectual, Friendship, Gen, Post-Canon, spoilers for Ex Machina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 18:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18761962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DuchessOfBurgundy/pseuds/DuchessOfBurgundy
Summary: Mitsuru and Aigis have a bonding moment after watching a movie about a killer android.





	Of Ava & Amborella

_"Why does she kill them, Mitsuru-san?"_

I feel a twinge of guilt as Aigis asks me this. It was she who requested we watch this film in the theatre, but I had the ultimate say as to whether we actually did. That's the terrible power I wield over Aigis – since she is technically my _property_ – and I don't believe I've ever done anything to deserve it. But perhaps I can at least console her now. "I think I get it."

She looks to me inquisitively, so I attempt to elaborate. "Do you remember, earlier in the film, when they were discussing the thought experiment with Mary in the black-and-white room?" Aigis nods. "She studies color but cannot see it, so she has great _academic_ knowledge of hue but doesn't know how it _feels._ The goal of the Turing test was to determine if Ava _experiences_ sentience rather than just knowing about it."

Aigis seems to be with me so far, so I continue. "Now invert that concept. Since Caleb and Nathan are biological humans, they can never truly know what it's like to be a sentient machine." I loathe using the given names of people who aren't my close friends, but that's all I can remember.

A perplexed expression washes over Aigis' face. "...So Ava was always fated to die?"

I shake my head. "Ava is the latest in a line of androids that Nathan has tested for sentience. Each time an iteration fails, Nathan destroys it and makes an improved version; it’s like _natural selection_ in that sense. But from an evolutionary standpoint, _success_ is not defined as _if Ava achieves sentience_ – or even _if Ava convinces Nathan she is sentient_ – but rather if Ava isn’t terminated for being perceived as non-sentient. And the most parsimonious way for her to meet that condition is to murder the only two people who know she’s a machine."

Aigis bows her head solemnly, and seems to withdraw into herself. "You make that sound so... _logical."_

I smile to her wryly. “Aigis… _I_ know that _you’re_ a machine. So are you going to kill me?”

Aigis seems surprised. "No, Mitsuru-san! You're my friend..." But then I see a quiet terror glaze over her blue eyes. She shudders, making me wonder how she acquired such a human-like nervous response. "...Is that because you think I'm sentient?"

"No, Aigis..." I place my hands on her shoulders to reassure her, feeling her mechanical joints quiver as I do. "I'm your friend because I don't _care_ if you're not sentient; I love and respect you nonetheless." Aigis smiles when she hears this, showing me that I've touched her Papillon heart.

But then her smile fades, and is replaced by a look of concern. “Mitsuru-san… you’re crying.”

 _“I’m okay.”_ It seems I also reflexively touched myself just now. My friend raises her hand to wipe the tears from my cheek. “Um… in a way I’m like you, Aigis. I’m a very non-standard human, so it’s hard for others to know what goes on inside my head.”

Aigis nods. “You’re more intelligent than most humans.”

“I’m more _intellectual,_ ” I correct her. “Other people are smart in different ways. But the important thing is that everyone else seems to be more similar to each other than they are to me, which makes me a kind of outcast…”

“Or an out _group.”_ Clever Aigis; it seems she’s been studying up on biology after all.

“Hm, yes. …Like _Amborella._ ” That one confuses her, so I try to explain. “It’s a type of flower that only grows on one little island in the Pacific. _Amborella_ is believed to be the sister group of all other living angiosperms; so whatever traits it shares with a Rose or Lily must constitute the basal condition of all flowers. Through studying _Amborella_ , we can guess at what the common ancestor of all flowering plants looked like… or at least, what a flower _is_ at its most fundamental level.”

“So if I want to understand _humans…”_ She looks at me, and finally there’s a smile we can share together. It fills me with warmth to believe that _this_ is the basis of our relationship – I can sympathize with Aigis through analogy, and in return she can appreciate me for how different I am.

 _Huh_ … to think we’d bond over a movie where some _bitch_ murders two guys so she can marvel at intersections…

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea while working on Chapter 9 of _Return To Tziah_. Mitsuru and Aigis' relationship is pretty fucked up in that story, so I thought it'd be nice to let them have this moment...


End file.
